The Mysterious Case of the Exsistential Crisis and the Hufflepuff
by PanzerCrappitista BoneChomper
Summary: Just a story about a girl trying to find out who she is, who she wants to be, and who she's meant to be. Nothing ground-shaking. She's not saving the school, or winning the house cup. Just coping with being a human, a Hufflepuff, and self discovery.
1. Chapter 1

**I like to see myself as a revolutionary. A role model. A super model. A super hero. The protagonist. I would like to see myself as any of those. I would like to be any of those. I would love to like who I am. **

But, as you can see, my three desires are completely incompatible and each one disappoints the other in a never ending loop. Then of course, I notice this and get upset. I am then disappointed with myself for getting upset about such petty and insecure notions. I realize that I will only ever continue to disappoint myself in a cycle, and I'll spend my life wallowing in self disappointment.

And so, yeah... That's my mental state right now, and the last thing I really need is a life-changing event that will make me question everything that has ever been taught to me in the world.

You see, I think that the universe is somehow determined to consistently screw me over and is definitely out to get me. I don't want you to think that I'm vain, because I'm not. I don't think I'm the only human being that the universe is bent on destroying. I think it happens to a very unlucky, select few. I think I'm one of them. So, yay me for being special... I guess...

So anyway, more on the universe being out to get me. It's not like it is for most people; A red light just as you thought you wouldn't be late, or needing the very thing that you never needed the day you trashed it. It's everything.

First of all, I really got the short end of the stick genetically. My whole family is tall, blonde-haired, blue eyed. My sister, for example, is athletic and undeniably beautiful. She has deep hips, an impressive chest.

It's annoying to go out with her, because everyone that sees her feels the need to stare and flirt at her fantastic genetic coding. They don't care that the blonde is a jerk when you get to know her. They don't notice the short, slightly overweight and frizzy-headed brunette standing behind her radiance. They don't care that this same brunette was a poet and a self-proclaimed philosopher. They just care about the wrapping paper, not the present.

Not to say I'm a great present. As far as gifts go, I would probably be the socks from your grandmother that were given to you instead of that new book you wanted. In fact, all that I've ever really wanted was to at least be cool socks with dots or stripes or birds or cats or something else like that on them... My sister would probably be the perfume of the present lot. She's lovely, but mostly air, and the best thing about her is the bottle.

Another instance of how much the universe hates me, is that time is never on my side. What seems to take hours for me, takes minutes for other people. You may think that this is just because I'm slow or something, but really, I think that time is a relative and personal law of the universe, and it's personalized itself to me, and making my life suck. I feel like, in world where everyone goes, "tick" I have to go, "tock". Always a step behind, never catching up, and even though I think I'm part of the same clock, I'm still an entirely different entity.

I'll play situations in my head, in which I always respond with a clever and witty remark or comeback to anything said or done to me. I then wait for said situations, but they never come. And, when they do, I always A) Forget what I was going to say, B) say it too late, or C) Say it wrong {little things, like saying 'weally!" in stead of 'really!', tend to ruin what could have been a victory}.

Going back to what I said earlier, about how I didn't need anything ground-shaking and life-changing, before I went into my whiny rant of self-pitty. Well, the universe hates me, and just what I didn't need was exactly what happened.

But, before I go into The Day My Life Fell Apart, I would like to answer your ever eager question: Who am I? Well, I know my name is Elizabeth Bray, but that doesn't really make a person, does it? In all honesty, beyond my name, I don't know anything about myself. In fact, that's what this really is about. I want to figure it all out, but I can't even see what 'it' is.


	2. Chapter 2

I really want to thank everyone that's read my story so far. It's the first one I've ever written, and I would really appreciate reviews!

**So, The Day My Life Fell Apart started out just like any other Day My Life Stayed Together. **

I woke up in my hideous bright pink room, which I had covered from ceiling to floor with posters and paintings and the pages of an old dictionary in a sad attempt to make it look cooler. I personally hate the color pink, because It's the embodiment of everything I hate about my family, yet kind of still want to be a part of, and it hates me back. The room used to be my sisters, but when she had grow out of her pink fairy princess phase (She's in a purple athlete princess phase now) I moved in. You see, if she thinks she's too cool for a pink room, then she gets moved out of it. I, on the other hand, have to tear up an Oxford dictionary.

It's not only that I think my parental units just like my sister more, it's just that I think they don't love me at all. They're not cruel or anything, I haven't been shoved into the cupboard under the stairs or something outlandish like that, but it's like I'm not even there.

Like, once I was trying to do as I was told pretty much every time I walked into a room with them in it. I was trying to be more like my sister. So, I tried out for my school's badminton team. I was pretty good at it, too, but after the try outs I had to wait for my parents to pick me up. And guess what! Go ahead, guess! Oh, I'm sure you have already, and you're probably right. They didn't pick me up. I waited at the school for 2 and a half hours, and when they didn't show up, I had to convinced the janitor to let me sweep the floors of the school in exchange for enough money to pay for the bus ride home.

And while I agree that everything that I've told you about was pretty bad, I think that this next part is the worst part of all. When I got home, my so-called 'family' was sitting at the table, eating dinner like nothing had even happened. I walked into the dining room, disgruntled and dirty from the practice, the cleaning, and the bus ride which, did I mention that there was this really creepy old guy sitting next to me in green robes that kept on staring at me, and offered me this weird candy that I swore could move. I WAS MOLESTED! Who knows what was in that guy's candy! If I hadn't kept my head in the situation, I could have been taken to God knows where for God knows what by a creepy and probably crazy elderly man!

So, anyway, I was in the dining room, and they just stared. They looked from me, to my usual chair at the table, to me again. My dad started to laugh. Ha Ha Ha Ha, Elizabeth, Ha Ha, we didn't even notice you were gone, Ha Ha Ha, He chortled out. So I screamed at him that it wasn't funny, which made my mother and sister start to laugh as well. I got really red in the face and embarrassed, like it was because of my own foolishness that they left me to fend for myself. I practically screamed at them everything that had happened, and went on about sweeping the floors while the janitor sang these horrible out-of-key sea shanties, and do you know what they did? They continued to laugh, and said that stuff like that 'built character,' or something.

"Well, clearly," I growled in that kinda horse voice you get when you're trying really hard not to cry in front of people you hate, " Harley doesn't have any character, because you love her to much for her to build it. Or is character just a byproduct of neglect?". I ran into my room then, and expected them to come rushing up after me, telling me that they did love me, and that I needed to come down and eat dinner, and that they were sorry for leaving me . But they never came, and the next morning, I came down stairs and it was like nothing had even happened.

But, back to The Day My Life Fell Apart. I got out of bed, which was of course pink, and put on my favorite outfit. (Jeans, and a red T-Shirt that had Captain America on it. My dad is very politically active, and according to him, all of London's problems come from America. I wear it just to grind his gears. It tends to work. ) I walked down the stairs, past picture upon picture of Harley doing this, Harley winning that, Harley at the award ceremony for the award I had won for getting top marks in all my classes, (I wasn't in that picture. Or in any of them.) and into the kitchen.

There, my mum was baking breakfast, and was humming some kind of horrible pop song about break ups and make ups. Her dangerously tight, short, and shiny plastic dress squeaked and folded whenever she moved in a way that had to be uncomfortable. Her bright red lipstick perfectly matched her red finger nails and red dangling earrings.

It was Saturday, and I knew she didn't plan on going out all day, but she still dressed up like she was about to be filmed and wore high heels. I think she might be seeing the milkman, but I don't really care, because we get extra bottles whenever he comes. I tend to steal said bottles when they're empty, because I like the way they capture light when I put them in my window. He never asks for them back; Yet another kindness that proves he and my mum are forbidden lovers.

She shimmied over to where I was sitting, making sure not to expand her chest too much as she breathed or move her hips too much as she walked, and placed an egg on my plate.

"Good Morning, Sweet Heart, how did you sleep?", she asked with that disgustingly fake 'considerate mother' smile of hers. I opened my mouth to answer, but was cut off.

"Oh, good morning Mum! If you really must know, I slept horribly!" Harley proclaimed as she walked into the kitchen, miniskirt and tank-top clad, each being varying shades of purple and pink. Just like all of her clothes. And, like most of her shirts, her boobs were hanging out, loud and proud. I swear I could see her underwear, her skirt was that short. Even though Harley was dressed up like some kind of rainbow prostitute, my mom still thought she was a direct descendant of God or an Angel or something heavenly like that. I don't know why I was surprised she wasn't talking to me. Why on Earth would she?, "Lizzy kept me up all night last night with her horrible music!" She put her face into a ridiculous and overdramatic pout. It was so saturated with melodrama, that I almost laughed. My mom cut me a murderous glare.

"Lizzy! Is this true?" She said in that way she asks things that she already knows the answer to, albeit the wrong answer. She's like one of those crappy 'Choose your own Adventure' novels. They say you get to choose, but it doesn't matter if you turn to page 16 or 27, you'll always end up on page 88, where you die or get lost or caught or something fatal like that. If I say yes, I get in trouble. If I say no, She'll think I'm lying, and I'll get in trouble. Hello, Page 88.

"If by 'Is this true?', you're asking me if I played music, then the answer is yes. If you're asking whether or not I played it loud enough to disrupt Harley, then No... Good Morning, by the way.", I said in what I hoped was a reasonable tone. The tone of a lawyer, or a teacher talking about their favorite lesson. My 'I know what I'm talking about so much, that you don't,' tone. Or, at least, that was what I was hoping to pull off. Guess what! I didn't pull it off. Thanks, Universe!

"Are you getting a tone with me, young lady?" I was really close to rolling my eyes, but I fought the urge and instead lowered them. I mumbled an apology that I hoped sounded genuine. I haven't been very good at my tones so far today, so I'n not sure how that turned out.

"Frizzy Lizzy also stole my hairbrush, and refuses to give it back. I can hardly blame her though, she really needs one." That matter-of-fact voice she uses makes me want to kill her. Her words kinda make me want to cry and punch her at the same time... I wonder if I could pull off doing both at once without looking like an idiot or getting in trouble. I don't think I could, so I compromise by just clinching my fists and willing myself not to blush.

Mum just clucked and shook her head. "Lizzy, why would you take her brush? You know it would just get stuck. I would take you to get your hair cut, but I think the barber would lose his scissors...", She stopped to think for a moment before she reached out her hand, and touched my frizzy mane, "I would get a perm, but I don't think it would work..."

I found myself staring at the glass of orange juice, avoiding eye contact. Maybe I should retreat to my room? No, I want breakfast. Can I take my eggs and run? No, that would be pathetic. Was breakfast really worth putting up with this? I could just skip the meal; My mum was always telling me not to eat as much... I was starting to get really worked up. Why would my family be treating me like this?

I felt something then, something bubbling deep inside of my stomach. Kinda like when you're suddenly in a very good mood, and you get that giddy feeling in a wave. I bit my lower lip, because it wasn't really a good feeling.

Harley came up right next to me, and put her hand on my shoulder. "Oh, Frizzy Lizzy... Are you getting upset?" She asked. I focused on the orange juice. "It's okay. I mean, if I were more like you, I would too," She patted my shoulder, looking down with fake sympathy. Orange Juice.

"Now Harley, you didn't need to say that. The truth is sometimes better left unsaid." My mum cut in. The feeling in my stomach grew in intensity.

"But mum, she needs to hear this. She'll be in secondary school soon, and it's better that she hears this from family before she hears it from the kids in the hall. It's wrong to deny the inevitable." Focus. On. The. Juice. Don't take the bait, she's trying to get you in trouble. Orange Juice. Mum sighed in agreement. The feeling in my stomach was unbearable, and my fists shook. Was I going crazy, or was the glass shaking too?

"You guys do realize that I'm standing right here!" I screamed, just as the feeling in my stomach was released, and the glass of orange juice, the windows, and the bottles of milk

shattered and blew apart into shards across the room.


	3. Chapter 3

My mum screamed and ducked under the kitchen counter, and my sister yelped a word that was not becoming of the angel spawn my mum thought she was. I just sat there, dumbstruck and a little light headed.

There had to be a logical explanation. Maybe it was a huge electromagnetic wave that passed through the house, and we're being invaded by aliens. Oh, wait. That's not logic.

It was a ghost! I read a book that said that ghosts are just ripples in the fabric of time caused by an episode of great emotional trauma. There could be the ghost of a girl that had frizzy hair like mine, and was standing up for me... By breaking all of the glass in my kitchen. As much as I would love to believe that someone was sticking up for me, I'm going to have to push that aside as nonlogical.

Come on now, Elizabeth, WWSD? What would Spock do? He would figure out a logical explanation, go back to the Interprise, and then... I don't know, make out with Captain Kirk? Okay, so maybe I shouldn't take all my advice from a pointy-eared Vulcan, but I don't really know what else to do. Glass just spontaneously exploded, it may or may not have been caused by me, and oh yeah, I might have a shard of glass in my right eyebrow.

Awesome.

"What the-", it's good to know she really knows how to keep her language clean in moments of intense stress, "was that," Harley said as she rose off the kitchen floor, her voice and her body trembling. She had some pieces of glass in her hair, but no cuts or major injuries.

"I-i have N-no I-idea," I managed to stutter out. Ugh, so much for me being one of those people in books and movies that will work perfectly fine- if not better- in a crisis. I was a mess. I could hardly move, but I somehow found control of my shaking right hand, and picked up the napkin that was on the counter by me. It was soaked with orange juice, and I brought it shakily to my forehead. Don't try this at home, kids. Orange juice on an open wound hurts. Probably something to do with the citric acid or something like that.

My mum rose up from the ground, relatively unharmed as well. She looked so ridiculous right then, with her tight dress, makeup, disheveled hair, and high heels in the wreckage that was our kitchen. I let out a hysterical laugh, like a barking lunatic. Maybe I had a concussion? Or maybe I was just always one big ball of schizophrenic mess, and that's why this happened. It was all a dream, and I was really somewhere locked up, in a looney bin, mumbling 'orange juice' over and over.

"Oh! Harley, Dear! Are you alright? Are you hurt?" She rose onto her shaky legs, and made a beeline for my sister, who shrugged her off, and approached me. I turned to face her, and she jabbed her index finger into my chest.

"I saw that. You don't think I did, but I did. You exploded the orange juice," Her eyes were narrowed, and her face was so close to mine that I could smell her strawberry pink lipgloss. I found this hilarious, and I just kept laughing. It was the most absurd thing I'd ever heard, and I like to ask myself WWSP.

"What! Me? How would I have done this?", I giggled incredulously. I felt really bold, so I added, "And, by the way, 'Exploded', isn't a word." At this, she turned a deep shade of scarlet, and I could tell that she wanted to punch/kill/quarter me. I stopped laughing.

"Don't act dumb, you little twerp. I saw how you were glaring at that juice. How long have you been able to do that?" She growled. She was ridiculous, assuming these things about me. I mean... fine, strangish things happened around me sometimes, but I thought they happened to everyone. They weren't magic or anything. Just... Unexplainable coincidences.

Like one night when I was six, after Harley dared me to watch a scary movie, I sat in my bed with the lights out- too scared to turn them out and have to walk to my bed in darkness. This wasn't like the kinda scaredish feeling you normally get after watching a movie; This was sheer, unadulterated terror. I knew, I just KNEW that the second I turned off the lights, the monsters would come. I wasn't even really afraid that the monsters would eat me or whatever. I was just scared that I would see one, and it would mean that monsters were real, and no where that I ever went would ever be safe because everywhere, just three-fourths of an inch out of my line of vision, there would be one. Waiting for a moment of weakness, waiting for me to be alone so it could dance in my nightmares.

I just sat there in bed, crying and scared out of my wits. When you're a kid, I guess that your bed is like a safe haven or a sanctuary or something, and nothing could or would harm you as long as you stayed in the pillowy protection of the bedding. I remember sitting there and with all my heart willing the overhead light to go off, and my nightlight to go on.

And then it did. The light switch flipped itself off, and my nightlight flickered on like magic or a miracle or something. I told myself that it had to be the electricity going out, or something technical like that, and I quickly fell asleep.

Or, another time, when Harley was going to a super important and fancy dance at her school. She spent the whole week going on and on and on about how it was going to be perfect, and about how beautiful she would be. My mum indulged this, and helped fuss over her.

I think that maybe Mum was trying to live vicariously through Harley in a way, and that's why Harley ALWAYS got exactly what she wanted. When I think about it that way, I always feel kinda sorry for her. But feeling sorry, and feeling forgiving are two completely different things.

Harley's favorite thing to do as she was getting ready was compare herself to me. She would drag me into her room, with her dress and makeup all done up and everything, and she would place me in front of the mirror. There, she would closely point out everything about me that she did better. Like, 'Oh, you see how you're nose is all rounded and floppy like that? According to Teen Dream Magazine, that's the main nose shape that's a turn-off for boys. They like the long, yet buttonish kinda noses. Just like mine,' or 'You actually might be sort of pretty, Lizzy, if you didn't have all those freckles. You need a clear complexion, like mine, if you ever want to be beautiful,". It would drive me crazy, but I knew that if I left, Harley would blame me for doing this or that, and I would get in trouble with Mum.

So, everyday I would bear it, and everyday I would hate her a little bit more and more. This continued until the night before the dance, when she put on her ridiculous green coconutty facial masky thing so her skin would be soft and radiant in the morning. I went to bed feeling ugly and hating my sister so much for being able to be and do exactly what I wanted, and for rubbing it in my face like she rubbed the facial into hers.

The next morning, an ear-splitting shriek erupted from Harley's room. Panicked, I jumped out of bed, grabbed the first threatening-esque thing I could find, (Which was a pink Elmo Umbrella that said, 'I love fruit!', on it.) and charged into her room, expecting a burglar or dinosaur or something scary like that. What I found instead was Harley, sitting in front of her mirror, with her freshly-permed hair in sad, blonde clumps on the floor, and her face covered in acne and boils. It was the most hideously hilarious thing I had ever seen, but somewhere deep inside me, I felt a twinge of sorrow.

Harley, of course, didn't go to the dance. Or to school. Or outside the house. Or outside her room. She just stayed there, all day crying and griping about her appearance.

And here's the weirdest thing; The next day, it was like nothing had happened. Her hair was back to it's full, silky self, and her complexion was like that of a genetically-engineered superhuman foxy model thing. (Programed to seduce and kill unexpecting men.)

Okay, fine. Maybe I made weird stuff happen, but nothing ever like exploding glass. And, I don't think it's directly caused by me. It's caused indirectly by the Universe, which in case you haven't noticed, really really really hates me.

Mum made her way over to me, shakily on her heels amongst the broken glass, and looked me straight in the eyes. She had a look on her face that I had never seen before. Of course, I had lived with her my entire life, so I knew quite a wide variety of expressions from her. There was the '60's Sitcom Housewife' face that she usually had plastered upon her features, complete with the fake smile and slightly tilted head, the 'proud mother' face, which was reserved for Harley, the 'Why can't you be more like Harley' face (reserved for moi), the 'disappointed' look, disappointed being a universal Mum codeword for mad, and- my personal favorite- the 'Oh my, how did I birth this thing,' look that she had whenever we had *ahem* "Mother-Daughter-Bonding" time.

I liked the last one, because it was a mixture between the look you get on you face when you see the bearded lady at a circus (fascinated disgust), the look you get when you see a baby bird that fell out of a tree (that special kind of pity where you feel like someone should do something, but that someone isn't you), and the face you get when you've just eaten something, and you can't tell if you really liked it or really didn't. (Like circus peanuts covered in peanut butter). This rare and illusive specimen only came out when it thought that you weren't looking, and to most, it's a lot like dark matter. They only know it by it's effects- The mum's head turning quickly as you turn to face her, her lips suddenly pulling guiltily upward into a fake smile. The remaining frown lines years later serve as the only tangible proof that this look exists. The only few people (like me) that have seen it first hand are pushed aside like those people that claim they saw Bigfoot or aliens abducting their cow, or something like that. And, just so you know, I'm pretty sure that I've seen at least four supernatural beasts in all my 11 years. Just saying.

The look she had on her face was one of... _Fear_? Oh Gosh, was she afraid of me? Her voice shook as she pointed toward the door and uttered one word that I knew would change my life forever.

"Out." There was steel in her voice. I'd never really understood that saying before; I mean, how could someone's voice be metallic? But I understand it now. It's a voice that's hard, sharp, cool, but burning. I stared at her incredulously.

"W-what?"

"Out. Get out of this house. Take your things, and leave."

"B-but, you can't do this! We're family!" Right? RIGHT? She wouldn't do this to me; She's just a little shaken up, or she was kidding. Ha ha ha, nice one Mum! You're hilarious... Right?

"We're not family," she sneered.

"You're adopted!" chimed in Harley, a cruel and amused smile dancing across her features. And with that, my life promptly fell apart.


End file.
